Sunday, July 26, 2009

Deciding when a person's behavior constitutes disorderly conduct is one of the broadest and most undefined areas of law enforcement where police officers have wide latitude. In law enforcement, there are few situations that are clear cut.

As Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. now knows all too well, the misdemeanor charge can be used to corral people who are simply uncooperative or rude. State statutes are designed to help police officers maintain authority, and they are so broadly worded that divining what constitutes disorderly conduct is left up to the discretion of individual officers. "It's probably the most abused statute in America," says Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Perhaps not surprisingly, a good chunk of disorderly conduct charges end up being dropped, as happened in the case against Gates, who was arrested on his porch July 16 after yelling at the officer who responded to a report of a possible break-in at the Harvard scholar's home in Cambridge, Mass. Gates, who is Black, accused Sgt. James Crowley, who is white, of being a racist and also cast aspersions about the cop's "mama". "Mr. Gates was given plenty of opportunities to stop what he was doing. He didn't. He acted very irrational. He controlled the outcome of that event," Crowley said.

Talking trash by itself isn't a punishable offense — unless, it seems, you draw a crowd while doing it, which is part of the allegation against Gates. That's why in the wake of the Gates incident, cops are holding firm on the need for lots of latitude in issuing disorderly conduct charges. President Barack Obama, who said earlier this week that Cambridge police had "acted stupidly," called Crowley Friday to make nice, though he stopped short of issuing the apology that Massachusetts police unions sought and maintained that he still thought "there was an overreaction."

"Disorderly conduct is a fluid concept," says Tom Nolan, a criminal justice professor at Boston University who spent 27 years in uniform at the Boston Police Department. "Unlike a lot of other crimes, this really calls for the use of discretion in a way that armed robbery or more serious felony crime doesn't. The less serious a crime, the more officer discretion you use," he says, adding "discretion is judgment that we hope is based on wisdom, experience and training."

Disorderly conduct has its roots in the mid-19th century, when police officers needed a way to quell street brawls that erupted frequently between recent immigrants and already established residents, often regarding labor issues. Crowds would gather and cops needed to restore order in public places. According to the Cambridge police report, Gates exhibited "loud and tumultuous behavior, in a public place" that "caused citizens passing by this location to stop and take notice while appearing surprised and alarmed."

The issue of whether or not Gates — first in his home and later on his front porch — was in a public place has sparked plenty of debate, including in the blogosphere. Crowley's account of the incident included the detail that "at least seven" passers-by had stopped to rubberneck. Sam Goldberg, author of Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog, thinks the report includes that detail in order to bolster the case that this altercation was playing out publicly. "It's as if he was saying, 'Look, he was really causing a disturbance,'" says Goldberg, a criminal defense attorney at the Cambridge-based firm of Altman & Altman.

Jon Shane, who spent 17 years as a police officer in hardscrabble Newark, N.J., said that had he been the cop called to Gates' house, he would have left Gates and his huffy comments alone once he was sure Gates was the homeowner. He admits he may well have been offended by the professor's alleged bluster, but that's just part of the job, so much so that there's a term in police vernacular devoted to situations like this: contempt of cop.

"In contempt of court, you get loud and abusive in a courtroom, and it's against the law," says Shane, now a professor of criminal justice at John Jay who specializes in police policy and practice. "With contempt of cop, you get loud and nasty and show scorn for a law enforcement officer, but a police officer can't go out and lock you up for disorderly conduct because you were disrespectful toward them." The First Amendment allows you to say pretty much anything to the police. "You could tell them to go f--k themselves," says Shane, "and that's fine."

Like Shane, there are plenty of cops and ex-cops who think Professor Gates' behavior didn't warrant the disorderly conduct charge, and there are those, like Nolan, who feel it did.

"Police pride themselves on resolving issues, and 99% of the time it occurs without arrests happening," says Nolan. "You are not going to win any accolades bringing in anyone for a street disturbance. It's a waste of time because in order to bring this situation to a conclusion, you've got hours of paperwork ahead of you."

"You do it because you have no other tool at your disposal," he says of disorderly conduct. "There really isn't any other choice."

"Commissioner Davis was made aware of a correspondence with racist remarks and removed the officer of his gun and badge."

The email describes Harvard Professor Doctor Henry Luis Gates, who was arrested and briefly detained earlier this month at Harvard, near Boston, as a "banana-eating jungle monkey" .

The city's mayor, Tom Menino, was quoted referring to Barrett as a "cancer in the department" and calling on him to be fired.

Gates became the center of a national debate on racism when he was charged with disorderly conduct after arguing with police sent to investigate a suspected burglary at his home near Harvard University.

President Barack Obama became embroiled in the uproar when he said police acted "stupidly."

But the email has reignited the controversy and dealt Boston's police a severe image blow just when they and the White House were hoping to calm tensions.

The email allegedly written by Barrett lambasts Gates for getting into an altercation with police.

"I am not a racist, but I am prejudice towards people who are stupid," reads the alleged diatribe -- containing frequent grammatical and spelling errors -- against Gates and local newspaper the Boston Globe.

"He has indeed transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey."

Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham supported Gates' actions, asking readers, "Would you stand for this kind of treatment, in your own home, by a police officer who by now clearly has no right to be there?"

In Barrett's e-mail, which was posted on a Boston television station's Web site, he declared that if he had "been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance."

Barrett used the "jungle monkey" phrase four times, three times referring to Gates and once referring to Abraham's writing as "jungle monkey gibberish."

He also declared that he was "not a racist but I am prejudice [sic] towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they say is freedom but it is merely attention because you do not get enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers."

Barrett's comments were taken out of context, said his attorney, Peter Marano.

Officer Barrett did not call professor Gates a jungle monkey or malign him racially," Marano said. "He said his behavior was like that of one. It was a characterization of the actions of that man."

According to a statement from Boston police, Commissioner Edward Davis took action immediately on learning of Barrett's remarks, stripping the officer of his gun and badge.

Does "Cambridge-Gate" tell us anything about the state of race relations in America? Or was the arrest of prestigious Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. just an isolated incident that's been blown out of proportion?The dueling perspectives are revealing. President Obama originally said the Cambridge police acted stupidly. The officers – ironically, the lead one teaches a class about racial profiling – insist they followed protocol.In "post-racial" America, discussing uncomfortable racial encounters, especially by law enforcement, can seem like whining or victimhood.Unfortunately, our racial discourse too often dissolves into generalities, conflations, and misunderstanding.The fact that the nation, including President Obama, interrupted an urgent debate about healthcare reform to reflect on this particular arrest speaks volumes about how race continues to matter in our society. Just this afternoon, Obama told the press he had called Sgt. James Crowley (the arresting officer) to clarify his remarks and suggested he'd like to share a beer with him and Professor Gates at the White House.Gates's story resonated with me – a Black law and medical school professor – and I wish it had not, because it recalls my pain in similar encounters.I remember the time I was pulled over in Indiana about seven years ago. The gum-chewing officer demanded to know: "What's the situation here?"A look of disbelief blossomed into terror across the faces of my two white colleagues from Europe, as I explained to the officer that the men were colleagues and I was driving them to the airport. Unsatisfied with that answer, he went to the passenger side of the car, to confirm this from my Italian colleague. Only then did he let us proceed.Or there was last year in Chicago, when I was pulled over after leaving the Mercedes Benz repair shop. The officer came to my car wanting to know whether the car was mine. I explained that it was and that I was on my way to work at the University of Chicago. Yet he continued to ask, several times, whether the car belonged to me. Each time, I answered "Yes." The irony is that he was holding the registration papers, insurance card, and my driver's license. What more proof could I offer?My frustration deepened precisely because the officer had verification of my ownership. His further delay wasted his time and mine. I refuse the cloak of victimhood, but after he pulled away, I called my husband – a white professor – and wept long and hard.Perhaps the incident that troubles me most deeply, and which remains difficult to talk about, occurred 10 years ago, my daughter was in pre-school.We were pulled over at night, after being followed for (I would later learn) 31 miles by an unmarked car driven by an officer not in uniform. When I asked for his identification, the man hurled racial epithets and screamed "I am the police," while beating on my car with his flashlight.Fortunately, for my daughter and I, my friend, a white social worker whose seat had been in full recline, sat up and began screaming. When the officer saw her he stopped beating my car. I immediately called the police. As the officers arrived, we were told to drive off.It was my friend who followed-up, filing the police complaint. It was a terror that she will not forget. I recently looked at the internal investigation report to prove to myself that it wasn't just a horrible dream.We will never know exactly what happened at Gates's home July 16. But in a city full of noisy college students, police regularly deal with loudness and tumultuous behavior. So doesn't it seem odd that officers chose to arrest a slight, gray-haired man who relies on a cane to walk – after they confirmed it was his home?Despite some of my experiences, I know that most officers are well-meaning and sophisticated; they deal with emotionally-charged situations in homes all the time and often provide relief. Think of the reaction when a mom finds out her child has been injured or assaulted.In the spirit of helpfulness, why not search the home for a burglar, to protect Gates, whom they knew belonged there?Black professors expect that if they work hard, accumulate multiple degrees, write prolifically, defy low expectations, and exceed the highest standards, they'll be insulated from stereotypes and maltreatment. But fair or reasonable treatment is not a societal goal reserved for only the well-educated. Everyone deserves at least that, even in Cambridge. Michele Bratcher Goodwin is a professor of law and a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Minnesota.(By Michele Bratcher Goodwin)

Well, well, well … another “racial incident” is upon us. This time, we’re in an uproar over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates (Black) by Sgt. James Crowley (white) for disorderly conduct after a heated argument about whether Gates had broken into his own house in Cambridge, Mass. Incidents like this should be an excuse to have a nuanced discussion about race in America. It's an excellent opportunity for people to hear about why Black men feel so threatened by police. Hell, it would be a great time for a bit of B-roll─just a taste of the famous incidents that have seared a distrust of the police into African-Americans, for better or for worse. It could start with the use of high-pressure water hoses and dogs on children in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, and continue through the high-profile murders of black folks, such as Emmett Till, by people who were not convicted but who confessed to the crime in Life magazine. Maybe it could mention that of the 240 postconviction DNA exonerations in the U.S., 142 have been of African-Americans. And though it may be controversial, perhaps throw in the exoneration of four white officers for the beating of Rodney King in 1992.

Now, I know that none of these things have much to do with what happened at Professor Gates’s house, except that they have everything to do with it. It’s important for people to know that Black distrust of the cops didn’t form in a vacuum. And you know, it wouldn’t hurt to get a little background on what local and national police procedure actually is under these kinds of circumstances.

For instance,(1) if a cop asks you to step outside, do you have to? (No. No. A thousand times NO!) (2) Do the police have a right to come inside your house? NO! Not without your permission, unless they have a warrant sign by a neutral and detached magistrate, or have probable cause to believe that a crime is in progress.(3) Is it illegal to yell at the police? (No.) But it is appropriate for cops to investigate 911 calls. That’s what we pay them to do. We don’t escape racially charged situations by silence or ignorance. And we clearly don’t escape “the third rail of race,” as the press likes to call it, by sticking to our talking points no matter the circumstances. Let’s just run through those talking points and see how we could have made some headway but didn’t:

1. The president should have kept his mouth shut until he knew all the facts. This is a popular rebuttal in situations like this, when directly answering the point raised would force you to possibly admit some wrongdoing, and, for some reason, when race is concerned it’s impossible to be even 1 percent wrong. When Dennis O'Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, was asked at today’s press conference what the proper procedure is for arresting people for disorderly conduct, the question was thoroughly ducked by an association attorney who said, “Having spent 30 years in the business, any law professor will tell you that one of the most difficult crimes to define is disorderly [conduct], but when a police officer makes a decision on the street, he doesn’t have time to explore 20 years of precedent.” That’s not an answer that indicates they’re confident Gates had been disorderly, but to answer that wouldn’t have served their point.

2. It was Gates who brought race into it. As if. As Gates, editor of the African American National Biography, would tell you, I’m sure race was a factor before his white female neighbor picked up her phone to dial 911. The cutting-edge research of UCLA’s Matthew D. Lieberman shows that large majorities of both Blacks and whites exhibit an automatic threat response when shown a picture of an African-American man with a neutral facial expression. That doesn’t mean we’re all racist, but it sure as heck indicates that we’re not race-neutral either. Nobody, especially police, can say that race is never, ever a fact in their decision making. Unconscious racial bias plagues us all. It was at least a partial motivation for the neighbor when she thought to call the police, and it was clearly uppermost in Gates’s mind when Sergeant Crowley knocked on his door.

3. The police are always motivated by racial animus when they investigate crime. They aren’t─there are tons of fabulous police officers who put themselves in harm's way to protect the citizens of their municipality. Once you begin to generalize wildly about all cops, you lose the argument that some cops do use racial profiling to target and harass African-Americans. The great thing about nuance is that it allows your point to be made and not immediately dismissed out of hand. Black people don’t commit all the crime in the United States, but they do commit some crime, so it’s not wacky for a cop to suspect that an African-American may have actually done something wrong. Forgive the sarcasm, but I’m just sick and tired of the conversation being hijacked by hardliners trying to convince us that it’s an either/or thing: either all black people are innocent and simply victims of police harassment and entrenched poverty, or all police officers are hardworking saints making snap decisions that are always right.

The wild reaction to President Obama’s comments indicates how far we still have to go when it comes to race relations. We use every incident that brings race to the forefront as proof that our previous positions were correct. This is why the American people are so weary of racial incidents; they're all sound and no substance. We elected an African-American president, for gosh sakes─we can handle nuance.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America's most prominent Black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it's not just another episode of profiling — it's a signpost on the nation's bumpy road to equality.

The news was parsed and Tweeted, rued and debated. This was, after all Henry "Skip" Gates: Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale. MacArthur "genius grant" recipient. Acclaimed historian, Harvard professor and PBS documentarian. One of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997. Holder of 50 honorary degrees.

If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average blacks can expect in 2009?

Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine, was once stopped by police during his train commute to work, dressed in a suit and tie.

"My case took place back in 1995, and here we are 14 years later dealing with the same madness," he said Tuesday. "Barack Obama being the president has meant absolutely nothing to white law enforcement officers. Zero. So I have zero confidence that (Gates' case) will lead to any change whatsoever."

The 58-year-old professor had returned from a trip to China last Thursday afternoon and found the front door of his Cambridge, Mass., home stuck shut. Gates entered the back door, forced open the front door with help from a car service driver, and was on the phone with the Harvard leasing company when a white police sergeant arrived.

Gates and the sergeant gave differing accounts of what happened next. But for many people, that doesn't matter.

They don't care that Gates was charged not with breaking and entering, but with disorderly conduct after repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number. It doesn't matter whether Gates was yelling, or accused Sgt. James Crowley of being racist, or that all charges were dropped Tuesday.

All they see is pure, naked racial profiling.

"Under any account ... all of it is totally uncalled for," said Graves.

"It never would have happened — imagine a white professor, a distinguished white professor at Harvard, walking around with a cane, going into his own house, being harassed or stopped by the police. It would never happen."

Racial profiling became a national issue in the 1990s, when highway police on major drug delivery routes were accused of stopping drivers simply for being black. Lawsuits were filed, studies were commissioned, data was analyzed. "It is wrong, and we will end it in America," President George W. Bush said in 2001.

Yet for every study that concluded police disproportionately stop, search and arrest minorities, another expert came to a different conclusion. "That's always going to be the case," Greg Ridgeway, who has a Ph.D in statistics and studies racial profiling for the RAND research group, said on Monday. "You're never going to be able to (statistically) prove racial profiling. ... There's always a plausible explanation."

Federal legislation to ban racial profiling has languished since being introduced in 2007 by a dozen Democratic senators, including then-Sen. Barack Obama.

U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said that was partly because "when you look at statistics, and you're trying to prove the extent, the information comes back that there's not nearly as much (profiling) as we continue to experience."

But Davis has no doubt that profiling is real: He says he was stopped while driving in Chicago in 2007 for no reason other than the fact he is Black. I would dare say more Blacks are pulled over by police for DWB than for DWI. (DWB, driving while Black)(It was not DWI, driving while intoxicated.) Police gave him a ticket for swerving over the center line; a judge said the ticket didn't make sense and dismissed it.

“You can be arrested for breathing while Black (BWB)

"Trying to reach this balance of equity, equal treatment, equal protection under the law, equal understanding, equal opportunity, is something that we will always be confronted with. We may as well be prepared for it," he said.

Amid the indignation over Gates' case, a few people pointed out that he may have violated the cardinal rule of avoiding arrest: Do not antagonize the cops.

The police report said that Gates yelled at the officer, refused to calm down and behaved in a "tumultuous" manner. Gates said he simply asked for the officer's identification, followed him into his porch when the information was not forthcoming, and was arrested for no reason. But something about being asked to prove that you live in your own home clearly struck a nerve — both for Gates and his defenders. At common law, a man's home was his castle.

"You feel violated, embarrassed, not sure what is taking place, especially when you haven't done anything," said Graves of his own experience, when police made him face the wall and frisked him in Grand Central Station in New York City. "You feel shocked, then you realize what's happening, and then you feel it's a violation of everything you stand for."

And that this should happen to "Skip" Gates — the unblemished embodiment of President Obama's recent admonition to Black America not to search for handouts or favors, but to "seize our own future, each and every day" — shook many people to the core.

Wrote Lawrence Bobo, Gates' Harvard colleague, who picked his friend up from jail: "Ain't nothing post-racial about the United States of America." (J. Washington, AP)

WHEN A WHITE WOMAN CALLS THE POLICE TO REPORT TWO BLACK MEN, WATCH OUT.HERE WE GO AGAIN. (see Two Black Men Kidnapped Me and My Daughter, in this Blog)

Prosecutors dropped a disorderly conduct charge Tuesday 22 Jul against prominent Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested after forcing his way into his own house in what he and other Blacks say was an outrageous but all-too-common example of how police treat them.

The city of Cambridge called the arrest "regrettable and unfortunate," and police and Gates agreed that dropping the charge was a just resolution — though not one that quelled the anger of one of America's top academics.

"I'm outraged," Gates said in extensive comments made to TheRoot.com, a Web site he oversees. "I can't believe that an individual policeman on the Cambridge police force would treat any African-American male this way, and I am astonished that this happened to me; and more importantly I'm astonished that it could happen to any citizen of the United States, no matter what their race.

"There are 1 million black men in the prison system, and on Thursday I became one of them," he said. "I would sooner have believed the sky was going to fall from the heavens than I would have believed this could happen to me. It shouldn't have happened to me, and it shouldn't happen to anyone."

Gates, 58, is director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and is a documentary host. He was arrested upon his return home from China, where he working on his latest film. He said he's now inspired to work on a documentary about racial profiling.

The city of Cambridge, a Boston suburb, released a statement saying the situation "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department."

Gates had just arrived from the airport when he realized his front door was jammed and he couldn't get into the tidy house with yellow clapboard that he rents from Harvard. He asked his driver for help.

Supporters say Gates was immediately considered a suspect because officers were summoned by a white female caller who said she saw "two black males with backpacks on the porch," one of whom was "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry," according to a police report.

When the officers arrived, Gates was already inside and on the phone with the real estate company that manages the property. He had come in through the back door and shut off the alarm, he said.

Police said Gates was arrested after he yelled at an officer, accused him of racial bias and refused to calm down after the officer demanded that Gates show him identification to prove he lived in the home.

Gates' lawyer, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, said his client showed his driver's license and Harvard ID — both with his photos — and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He followed the officer onto the front porch as he left his house and was arrested there.

Gates told The Root that the police handcuffed him behind his back but moved the cuffs to the front when he told them he walked with a cane. He noted that at least one of the officers in the group outside his house was Black.

He spoke of a "terrifying and humiliating" experience at the Cambridge jail, where he was booked, fingerprinted, photographed and questioned, then locked up in a tiny cell that made him claustrophobic.

He said that he doesn't know the white woman who called police, Lucia Whalen, and that "she was probably doing the right thing."

Gates said he harbors more anger toward the officer who arrested "the first Black man" he saw and arrested him on a "trumped-up charge."

He said he wants an apology from the officer, Sgt. James Crowley. He also said he planned to talk to his legal team about the next step.

Other prominent Blacks called the confrontation a clear example of racial profiling.

"Under any account ... all of it is totally uncalled for," said Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said he was unsatisfied with the resolution.

"The charges have been dropped, but the stain remains. ... Humiliation remains," Jackson said. "These incidents are so much of a national pattern on race."

Gates joined the Harvard faculty in 1991 and holds one of 20 prestigious "university professors" positions at the school. He also was host of "African American Lives," a PBS show about the family histories of prominent U.S. Blacks. In 1997, he was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans. (M. Trujillo, AP)

The Christian Science Monitor, noted for its balanced reporting, reported it thus:

Prosecutors in Cambridge, Mass., on Tuesday 22 Jul dropped disorderly conduct charges against Henry Louis Gates, a prominent professor at Harvard University and author of multiple books about the black experience in America.

But Mr. Gates' arrest on the front porch of his own home last week became a moment of national reflection, with Gates insisting that the incident was evidence of the persistence of racial profiling – even in one of America's most liberal cities.

Gates has told The Washington Post that he now intends to do a documentary on racial profiling – an idea that had "never crossed his mind" before now. The "criminal justice system is rotten," he said.

Gates was returning from filming a TV project called "Faces of America" in China last Thursday. According to the police report, police received a call that two men Black were trying to break into Gates's house. In fact, the two men were Gates and his driver, who were trying to open the front door, which was jammed.

Both sides have suggested that the other was argumentative. The police report says Gates eventually became verbally abusive, accusing the officer of suspecting him simply because he was Black. He was arrested soon after and placed in jail for four hours.

Cambridge police officials claim that the incident was an unfortunate escalation of wills. "I think what went wrong is that you had two human beings that were reacting ... and cooler heads did not prevail," said Cambridge police spokeswoman Kelly Downes. "It wasn't Professor Gates's best moment, and it was not the Cambridge Police Department's best moment."

Law enforcement analysts are inclined to agree, suggesting that the incident may have been only a "tempest in a teapot."

"The best motto for a police officer is that sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me," says George Kirkham, a former police officer and now a professor of criminology at Florida State University. "People wind up venting, and you have to let them vent."

Moreover, police officers should be particularly aware of historical injustices suffered by African Americans, he adds: "Blacks have had experiences with bullhorns and dogs in the South, and those wounds go deep – they're more sensitive and we need to realize that."

Commentators have taken both sides. Garrard McClendon, a black Chicago talk show host, called Gates's cries of racism "weak." But David Bernstein of the legal blog, the Volokh Conspiracy, writes: "Yelling at a cop isn't a crime."

Twenty-three states, including Massachusetts, have enacted legislation banning racial profiling. But such practices – stopping suspects on the basis of what they look like – are still prevalent, some say. A recent study showed that 89 percent of traffic stops in New York City involved non-whites.

"We are a country founded on Jeffersonian ideals, and people don't like government in their lives," says Professor Kirkham. "[Police] need to be aware of that."

Black leaders continued to condemn the actions of a Cambridge police sergeant who handcuffed the African-American professor outside his own home Thursday. Gates extended an unusual offer to the officer: in exchange for an apology, personal tutoring sessions on the history of racism in America.

Gates, still angry five days after his arrest, broke his silence yesterday to chastise Cambridge police for his treatment, dispute their assertion that he had made inflammatory remarks during the encounter, and seized upon his brief incarceration as a teaching moment on race relations, not only for Cambridge, but for the nation.

“I believe the police officer should apologize to me for what he knows he did that was wrong,’’ Gates said in a phone interview from Martha’s Vineyard. “If he apologizes sincerely, I am willing to forgive him. And if he admits his error, I am willing to educate him about the history of racism in America and the issue of racial profiling.

“That’s what I do for a living,’’ he added.

Yesterday various parties took stock of last week’s run-in between Gates and police Sergeant James Crowley, who is white, and its meaning remained the subject of a vigorous debate.

Gates, 58, the director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, gave his version of the events that disrupted the calm around his home on Ware Street, a tree-lined block near Harvard Square.

“The police report is full of this man’s broad imagination,’’ Gates said. “I said, ‘Are you not giving me your name and badge number because I’m a black man in America?’ . . . He treated my request with scorn.’’

Gates also said he was suffering from a bronchial infection and was physically unable to yell.

Furthermore, Gates said that as a man who is “half white,’’ who was married to a white woman for more than two decades, and whose children are part white, “I don’t walk around calling white people racist. . . . Nobody knows me as some lunatic black nationalist who’s walking around beating up on white people. This is just not my profile.’’

As news of Gates’s arrest spread around the globe and fueled accusations of racism, authorities scrambled to smooth things over. Leone summoned Cambridge police and Gates’s attorneys to a meeting yesterday morning to hash out a resolution.

During the meeting, the police agreed to drop the charge of disorderly conduct, and the parties drew up a conciliatory statement in which they called the incident “regrettable.’’

“This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department,’’ the statement said.

Gates, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, elevated Harvard’s African and African American studies department, and became one of the nation’s preeminent scholars on race, said he plans to use his arrest and his four hours in jail as a springboard: He may make a documentary on racial profiling.

Gates said he has gone out of his way in the past to avoid run-ins with police. When he first arrived at Harvard in 1991, he moved into a large house in the mostly white suburb of Lexington and promptly visited the police station to introduce himself.

“I wanted them to see my black face,’’ Gates said. “I would be driving home late from Harvard. I had a Mercedes. I didn’t want to be stopped for ‘driving while black.’ . . . I should have done that with the Cambridge Police Department.’’

Gates said he is concerned about the “unconscious attitudes’’ that police can hold.

“Because of the capricious whim of one disturbed person . . . I am now a black man with a prison record,’’ Gates said. “You can look at my mug shot on the Internet.’’

Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, said in a written statement that while she is gratified that the charges have been dropped, she remains “deeply troubled by the incident.’’

“Legacies of racial injustice remain an unfortunate and painful part of the American experience,’’ Faust said. “As President Obama has remarked, ours is an imperfect union, and while perfect justice may always elude us, we can and must do better.’’

Civic, religious, and civil rights leaders also said the case shows that more needs to be done to improve race relations.

“On one hand, there is a black man who is a millionaire who occupies the White House, and on the other hand, you have one of the most distinguished racial bridge-builders in the country, a scholar intellectual, being arrested,’’ said Rev. Eugene Rivers III, a black leader in Boston.

“The reality is that it doesn’t make a difference how distinguished or exceptional a black person thinks he or she is or may in fact be,’’ Rivers said. “You can be arrested for breathing while Black (BWB) in your own house.’’

Mayor E. Denise Simmons, the first Black woman mayor of Cambridge, said the incident has reminded the city that people need to be vigilant about their own behavior and biases.

“Certain things just should not happen, to anyone, whether it’s Professor Gates, a renowned national figure, or a public works person,’’ Simmons said.

Two months ago, Cambridge held a public forum on race and class at City Hall. It will hold another dialogue on the topic in October with Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

“Let’s not focus on the Police Department,’’ she said. “It’s all of our problem.’’

(BELOW IS THE POLICE REPORT)Main FormPage 1 of2CAMBRIDGE PolicE DEPARTMENTCAMBRIDGE, MAIncident Report #9005127Report Entered: 07/16/2009 13:21:34Case TitleDate[Tlme Reported0711612009 12:44:00Incident Type/Offense1.) DISORDERLY CONDUCT c272 S53 —Reporting OfficerCROWLEY, JAMES (467)PersonsLocationWARE STDate/Time OccurredtoApproving OfficerWILSON III,JOSEPH (213)Role NameWITNESS WHALEN, LUCIASex Race Age DOB40 HPhone AddressC MAOffendersStatus Name Sex Race Age DOB Phone AddressDEFENDANT GATES, HENRY MALE BLACK 58- — f H LLJ I $WARE STC CAMBRIDGE, MAVehiClesPropertyClass Description Make Model Serial # ValueNarrativeOn Thursday Ju 16, 2009, Henry Gates, Jr. !I , of Ware Street, Cambridge, MA) was placedunder arrest at Ware Street. after being observed exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior, in a public place,directed at a uniformed police officer who was present investigating a report of a crime in progress. These actionson the behalf of Gates served no legitimate purpose and caused citizens passing by this location to stop and takenotice while appearing surprised and alarmed.On the above time and date, I was on uniformed duty in an unmarked police cruiser assigned to theAdministration Section, working from 7:00 AM-3:30 PM. At approximately 12:44 PM, I was operating my cruiseron Harvard Street near Ware Street. At that time, I overheard an ECC broadcast for a possible break inprogress at Ware Street. Due to my proximity, I responded.When I arrived at* Ware Street I radioed ECC and asked that they have the caller meet me at the front door tothis residence. I was told that the caller was already outside. As I was getting this information, I climbed the porchstairs toward the front door. As I reached the door, a female voice called out to me. I turned and looked inthe direction of the voice and observed a white female, later identified as Lucia Whalen. Whalen, who wasstanding on the sidewalk in front of the residence, held a wireless telephone in her hand and told me that it was shewho called. She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on theporch of 0 Ware Street. She told me that her suspicions were aroused when she observed one of themen wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry. Since I was the only police officer onlocation and had my back to the front door as I spoke with her, I asked that she wait for other responding officerswhile I investigated further.Apt/Unit #http ://pd-rmsIQED//policepartner/common/crimeweb/incview/main.j sp?agencyCAM-PD... 7/20/2009Main Form Page 2 of 2As I turned and faced the door, I could see an older black male standing in the foyer of Ware Street. I madethis observation through the glass paned front door. As I stood in plain view of this man, later identified as Gates, Iasked if he would step out onto the porch and speak with me. He replied “no I will not”. He then demanded to knowwho I was. I told him that I was “Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police” and that I was “investigating a report of abreak in progress” at the residence. While I was making this statement, Gates opened the front door andexdaimed “why, because I’m a black man in America?”. I then asked Gates if there was anyone else in theresidence. While yelling, he told me that it was none of my business and accused me of being a racist policeofficer. I assured Gates that I was responding to a citizen’s call to the Cambridge Police and that the callerwas outside as we spoke. Gates seemed to ignore me and picked up a cordless telephone and dialed an unknowntelephone number. As he did so, I radioed on channel 1 that I was off in the residence with someone whoappeared to be a resident but very uncooperative. I then overheard Gates asking the person on the other endof his telephone call to “get the chier and “whaf s the chief’s name?”. Gates was telling the person on theother end of the call that he was dealing with a racist police officer in his home. Gates then turned to me and toldme that I had no idea who I was “messing” with and that I had not heard the last of it. While I was led to believethat Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he hibited towardme. I asked Gates to provide me with photo identification so that I could verify that he resided at WareStreet and so that I could radio my findings to ECC. Gates initially refused, demanding that I show him identificationbut then did supply me with a Harvard University identification card. Upon learning that Gates was affiliated withHarvard, I radioed and requested the presence of the Harvard University Police.With the Harvard University identification in hand, I radioed my findings to ECC on channel two and preparedto leave. Gates again asked for my name which I began to provide. Gates began to yell over my spoken wordsby accusing me of being a racist police officer and leveling threats that he wasn’t someone to mess with. At somepoint during this exchange, I became aware that Off. Carlos Figueroa was standing behind me. When Gates askeda third time for my name, I explained to him that I had provided it at his request two separate times. Gatescontinued to yell at me. I told Gates that I was leaving his residence and that if he had any other questionsregarding the matter, I would speak with him outside of the residence.As I began walking through the foyer toward the front door, I could hear Gates again demanding my name.again told Gates that I would speak with him outside. My reason for wanting to leave the residence was thatGates was yelling very loud and the acoustics of the kitchen and foyer were making it difficult for me totransmit pertinent information to ECC or other responding units. His reply was “ya, I’ll speak with your mamaoutside”. When I left the residence, I noted that there were several Cambridge and Harvard University policeofficers assembled on the sidewalk in front of the residence. Additionally, the caller, Ms. Walen and at least sevenunidentified passers-by were looking in the direction of Gates, who had followed me outside of the residence.As I descended the stairs to the sidewalk, Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continuedto tell me that I had not heard the last of him. Due to the tumultuous manner Gates had exhibited in his residenceas well as his continued tumultuous behavior outside the residence, in view of the public, I warned Gates thathe was becoming disorderly. Gates ignored my warning and continued to yell, which drew the attention of boththe police officers and citizens, who appeared surprised and alarmed by Gates’s outburst. For a second time Iwarned Gates to calm down while I withdrew my department issued handcuffs from their carrying case.Gates again ignored my warning and continued to yell at me. It was at this time that I informed Gates that he wasunder arrest. I then stepped up the stairs, onto the porch and attempted to place handcuffs on Gates. Gatesinitially resisted my attempt to handcuff him, yelling that he was “disabled” and would fall without his cane. After thehandcuffs were properly applied, Gates complained that they were too tight. I ordered Off. Ivey, who wasamong the responding officers, to handcuff Gates with his arms in front of him for his comfort while I secureda cane for Gates from within the residence. I then asked Gates if he would like an officer to take possession ofhis house key and secure his front door, which he left wide open. Gates told me that the door was un securabledue to a previous break attempt at the residence. Shortly thereafter, a Harvard University maintenanceperson arrived on scene and appeared familiar with Gates. I asked Gates if he was comfortable with thisHarvard University maintenance person securing his residence. He told me that he was.After a brief consultation with Sgt. Lashley and upon Gates’s request, he was transported to 125 6th. Street ina police cruiser (Carl, Off’s Graham and Ivey) where he was booked and processed by Off. J. P. Crowley.bttrv I/nd-rn, vJflPfl//nnl n tnr/n nn/nipu,ph/intvipw/rnin i cn?i aencvfl A M-PD 7flfl/W)flQMain FormPage 1 of4CAMBRIDGE POLICE DEPARTMENTCAMBRIDGE, MAIncident Supplement #9005127 - 1Report Entered: 07/16/2009 13:52:50Not For Public ReleaseCase TitleDISORDERLY CONDUCYDate/Time Reported0711612009 12:44:00Incident TypelOffense1.) DISORDERLY CONDUCT c272 S53 —Reporting OfficerFIGUEROA, CARLOS (509)PersonsSex Race Age DOBLocationDate/Time OccurredtoApproving OfficerWILSON III,JOSEPH (213)WHALEN, LUCIA 40 HC —: MANarrativeOn July 16, 2009 at approximately 12:44 PM, I Officer Figueroa#509 responded to an ECC broadcast for a possiblebreak at Ware St. When I arrived, I stepped into the residence and Sgt. Crowley had already entered and wasspeaking to a black male.As I stepped in, I heard Sgt. Crowley ask for the gentleman’s information which he stated “NO I WILL NOT!”.The gentleman was shouting out to the Sgt. that the Sgt.. was a racist and yelled that “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENSTO BLACK MEN IN AMERICA!” As the Sgt. was trying to calm the gentleman, the gentleman shouted “ You don’tknow who your messing with!”I stepped out to gather the information from the reporting person, WHALEN, LUCIA. Ms. Whalen stated to me thatshe saw a man wedging his shoulder into the front door as to pry the door open. As I returned to the residence,a group of onlookers were now on scene. The Sgt., along with the gentleman, were now on the porch ofWare St. and again he was shouting, now to the onlookers (about seven) ,“THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO LACKMEN IN AMERICA”! The gentleman refused to listen to as to why the Cambridge Police were there.While on the porch, the gentleman refused to be cooperative and continued shouting that the Sgt, is racist policeofficer.Basic Information[ AgencyIncident #Report #DateReport StatusCAM-PD9005127107/16/200912:44:00COMPLETEDJe Title/VictimIncident Type/OffenseDate/Time Printed: Mon )ul 20 13:58:11 EDT 2009 By: pcarterwApt/Unit #Role NamePhoneAddressOffendersStatusName Sex Race Age DOBPhoneAddressVehiclesPropertyClassDescriptionMake ModelSerial #Valuehttp://pd-rms/QED//policepartner/common/crimeweb/incview/main.jsp?agency=CAM-PD... 7/20/2009

The Cambridge police commissioner says his department is "deeply pained" by President Barack Obama's statement that his officers "acted stupidly" when they arrested a renowned Black scholar in his home.

In his first statement since the arrest, Commissioner Robert Haas commended the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley. Haas said Crowley's actions were in no way motivated by racism.

Crowley, who is white, has been criticized for arresting Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week. Police say Gates flew into a verbal rage when officers asked him for identification while investigating a report of a break-in.

On Wednesday 22 July, President Obama said officers "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates. On Thursday, he said cooler heads should have prevailed.

— The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on understanding racial profiling.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class about racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is Black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

"I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy," Fleming said on Thursday 23 July.

The course, called "Racial Profiling," teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community "and how you don't want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from," Fleming said. The academy trains cadets for cities across the region.

President Obama has said the Cambridge officers "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates last week when they responded to his house after a white woman reported a suspected break-in.

Crowley, 42, has maintained he did nothing wrong and has refused to apologize, as Dr. Gates has demanded.

Crowley responded to Prof. Gates' home near Harvard University last week to investigate a report of a burglary and demanded Gates show him identification. Police say Gates at first refused, flew into a rage and accused the officer of racism.

Dr. Gates was charged with disorderly conduct. The charge was dropped.

Prof. Gates' supporters maintain his arrest was a case of racial profiling. Officers were called to the home by a white woman who said she saw "two Black males with backpacks" trying to break in the front door. Dr. Gates has said he arrived home from an overseas trip and the door was jammed.

President Obama was asked about the arrest of Gates, who is his friend, at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night 23 July.

"I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry," Obama said. "No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3 — what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."

"I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement, because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home," Obama said."I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do," the president said. "And my suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates and that everybody should have just settled down and cooler heads should have prevailed. That's my suspicion." Although Obama has been vocal on past civil rights issues, he largely avoided race during the presidential campaign except for a singular speech he gave on the issue after his pastor was found to have made anti-American statements. Some say the president was right to bring up this discussion in a primetime speech.

"Have some people wanted him to bring this up sooner?" asked civil rights activist, the Rev. Al Sharpton. "Of course, we have. But the timing had to be right. He had the courage to take a position at a time when he knows some people will disagree."

"No one wants to talk about race," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and ABC News consultant. "He [Obama] does not inject race into the conversation regularly because it clears the room. There are designated times, like Martin Luther King Jr. Day or when we have a large gathering of black folks, like at the NAACP recently, but that's about it." In this case, he was asked a question directly, and he answered it honestly," she added. "Obama is the president for all American not just black Americans," said Democratic political strategist and ABC News consultant Donna Brazile. "He has enough on his plate as commander in chief – two wars, an economy in the tank – that he should not necessarily become the healer in chief."

Sgt. Crowley made it clear he is not apologizing. He told Boston's WEEI Radio that he regrets putting the city and police department "in a position where they now have to defend something like this," but he stood behind his claim that he simply tried to resolve the situation.

"I just have nothing to apologize for," he said. "It will never happen."

In radio interviews Thursday morning, Crowley maintained he followed procedure.

"I support the president of the United States 110 percent. I think he was way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts as he himself stated before he made that comment," Crowley told WBZ-AM. "I guess a friend of mine would support my position, too."

Prof. Gates has said he was "outraged" by the arrest. He said the white officer walked into his home without his permission and only arrested him as the professor followed him to the porch, repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number because he was unhappy over his treatment.

"This isn't about me; this is about the vulnerability of Black men in America," Dr. Gates said.

He said the incident made him realize how vulnerable poor people and minorities are "to capricious forces like a rogue policeman, and this man clearly was a rogue policeman."

The President of the United States said federal officials need to continue working with local law enforcement "to improve policing techniques so that we're eliminating potential bias."

Fellow officers, Black and white, say Crowley is well-liked and respected on the force. Crowley was a campus police officer at Brandeis University in July 1993 when he administered CPR trying to save the life of former Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis. Lewis, who was Black, collapsed and died during an off-season workout.

Gov. Deval Patrick, who is Black, said he was troubled and upset over the incident. Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, who also is Black, has said she spoke with Dr. Gates and apologized on behalf of the city, and a statement from the city called the July 16 incident "regrettable and unfortunate."

The mayor refused Thursday to comment on President Obama's remarks.

On Thursday, the White House moderated President Obama's comments by saying The President was not calling the officer stupid. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said The President felt that "at a certain point the situation got far out of hand" at Dr. Gates' home last week.

Police supporters charge that Gates, director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, was responsible for his own arrest by overreacting. This sounds very much like the police officers who beat Rodney King in Los Angeles on a video shown around the world. Even at their second trial they testified that Rodney King was completely in control of the beating situation. They alleged that Rodney King was responsible because he would not obey the officers and lay down on the freeway. He just kept getting up on his knees, so they just kept on beating him. Rodney King, they alleged, could have stopped the ferocious beating at any time. All he had to do was obey the police.

Black students and professors at Harvard have complained for years about racial profiling by Cambridge and campus police. Harvard commissioned an independent committee last year to examine the university's race relations after campus police confronted a young Black man who was using tools to remove a bike lock. The man worked at Harvard and owned the bike.

Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he is ready to move on from his arrest by a white police officer, hoping to use the encounter to improve fairness in the criminal justice system and saying "in the end, this is not about me at all."

After a phone call from President Barack Obama urging calm in the aftermath of his arrest last week, the Black professor said he would accept Obama's invitation to the White House for a beer with him and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley.

In a statement posted Friday on The Root, a Web site Gates oversees, the scholar said he told Obama he'd be happy to meet with Crowley, whom Gates had accused of racial profiling.

"I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative," Gates said. "I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige."

It was a marked change in tone. In the days following his arrest gathered up his legal team and said he was contemplating a lawsuit. He even vowed to make a documentary on his arrest to tie into a larger project about racial profiling.

In an e-mail to the Boston Globe late Friday 24 July, he said: "It is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience."

"Commissioner Davis was made aware of a correspondence with racist remarks and removed the officer of his gun and badge."

The email describes Harvard Professor Doctor Henry Luis Gates, who was arrested and briefly detained earlier this month at Harvard, near Boston, as a "banana-eating jungle monkey" .

The city's mayor, Tom Menino, was quoted referring to Barrett as a "cancer in the department" and calling on him to be fired.

Gates became the center of a national debate on racism when he was charged with disorderly conduct after arguing with police sent to investigate a suspected burglary at his home near Harvard University.

President Barack Obama became embroiled in the uproar when he said police acted "stupidly."

But the email has reignited the controversy and dealt Boston's police a severe image blow just when they and the White House were hoping to calm tensions.

The email allegedly written by Barrett lambasts Gates for getting into an altercation with police.

"I am not a racist, but I am prejudice towards people who are stupid," reads the alleged diatribe -- containing frequent grammatical and spelling errors -- against Gates and local newspaper the Boston Globe.

"He has indeed transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey."

Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham supported Gates' actions, asking readers, "Would you stand for this kind of treatment, in your own home, by a police officer who by now clearly has no right to be there?"

In Barrett's e-mail, which was posted on a Boston television station's Web site, he declared that if he had "been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance."

Barrett used the "jungle monkey" phrase four times, three times referring to Gates and once referring to Abraham's writing as "jungle monkey gibberish."

He also declared that he was "not a racist but I am prejudice [sic] towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they say is freedom but it is merely attention because you do not get enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers."

Barrett's comments were taken out of context, said his attorney, Peter Marano.

Officer Barrett did not call professor Gates a jungle monkey or malign him racially," Marano said. "He said his behavior was like that of one. It was a characterization of the actions of that man."

According to a statement from Boston police, Commissioner Edward Davis took action immediately on learning of Barrett's remarks, stripping the officer of his gun and badge.I NEVER SAID HE WAS BLACK!Lucia Whalen, the 911 Caller in the Prof Henry Louis Gates arrest case, said she thought one of the men might be Hispanic.The woman whose 911 call set in motion the events that led to the arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates did not tell police during the call that the two men she saw forcing their way into a house were Black.Her account of the incident, provided by her attorney, differs from a report written by the Police officer Crowley who arrested Gates. Officer Crowley's report said the witness told him at the scene the men were Black. The woman's lawyer denies that.

In a recording of the 911 call released Monday 28 July by police in Cambridge, Mass., Lucia Whalen said she could not see the men clearly. She said one man might be Hispanic.

According to the 911 call, Whalen wasn't sure a crime was taking place. She told a dispatcher she saw suitcases and didn't know whether the men lived in the house.

"I don't know what's happening," Whalen said. Several times during the 21/2-minute call, she said she made the call for an older woman who lives in the neighborhood and was worried when she saw two men trying to barge into the house.

Whalen, who works near Gates' home and was on her way to lunch when the incident occurred, spoke about it Monday through her lawyer, Wendy Murphy. According to Murphy, Whalen said officers did not interview her at the scene, she never said the men at the house were Black, and the only thing she told Crowley was that she was the 911 caller.

The release of the tape and a recording of subsequent police radio transmissions provided more details about the incident that has ignited a debate about race and racial profiling by police. The tapes do not explain how a routine call about a possible burglary led to Gates' arrest at home on a charge of disorderly conduct.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The Mother Country wants to be like her colonies.For the first time in its history, Great Britain is establishing a Supreme Court. In the past, the role of the highest court of appeal has always been fulfilled by the so-called Law Lords — 12 senior judges sitting in the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament.

In October 2009, all that will change in an upheaval of British tradition and jurisprudence.

Historically, the separation of powers among the three branches of government has never been part of Britain's unwritten constitution, says Lord Harry Woolf.

Until recently, Woolf was Lord Chief Justice, the head of the judiciary in England and Wales. He says there are numerous virtues in not having separation of powers.

"I had, under the old system, the advantage of being a member of, in effect, Congress, so I could and did come down to Parliament, and say, face to face, 'Look, we have these or those problems,'" he says.

Few people accused the Law Lords — the final court of appeal that was embedded in the House of Lords — of being too much in the government's pocket. There is little media coverage of the separation of powers issue, much less knowledge among average Britons — that the creation of the Supreme Court is taking place.

Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics, says there is a "profound sense of disengagement with traditional politics and distrust in politics."

"This has led to soul-searching about what might be changed constitutionally, believing that constitutional change might re-engage the public, and make them less suspicious of politics and politicians," he says.

As a result, the Supreme Court will open in Parliament Square, opposite the Houses of Parliament. But it's not just the relationship between judiciary and legislature that is being targeted for change.

The only half-reformed upper house of the British Parliament, the House of Lords, is still unelected. And the relationship between the executive — the government at No. 10 Downing Street — and Parliament, the British legislature that is supposed to place checks and balances upon the executive, is under scrutiny.

"The relationship is very close," says Andrew Turnbull, former head of the British Civil Service. "Indeed, you could say they are joined at the hip."

Turnbull was instrumental in pushing through the reforms that created a Supreme Court, and he wants to see more reforms across the British political landscape, including a reduction in the executive's ability to influence the legislature and a different way of choosing government ministers.

Under the current British system, the prime minister chooses his ministers from his own party's members of Parliament — as though President Obama chose his Cabinet only from the congressional members of his party. Turnbull says this means there is far too small a pool from which to choose capable ministers, and it can mean a conflict of interest for young ambitious members of Parliament.

"Those aspiring to make their way up the hierarchy will have tendency to pull punches, won't want to be too troublesome, won't want a reputation as part of the awkward squad. But that means the scrutiny of government business is not as robust as it might be," he says.

Finally, there is the underlying question of the constitution itself. Unlike the United States, Britain does not have a written constitution, relying instead on a mixture of parliamentary conventions, statutes and court judgments.

Now, some reformers say that along with all the other changes, the British need to break with their vaunted traditions and commit their constitution to writing.

But even at a time of change in the country, that radical idea still seems — at the moment, at least — as if it might be a step too far.

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